title: Atomic seesaws.
abstract: The dynamics of two types of atomic seesaws are studied by open feedback loop scanning tunneling microscopy. The first type of atomic seesaw is a regular Ge dimer of the dimer reconstructed Ge(001) surface and the second type of atomic seesaw is a dimer located on the ridges of Au induced nanowires on a Ge(001) surface. On the bare Ge(001) surface the flip-flop motion of the dimers is induced by phasons, which perform a one-dimensional random walk along the substrate dimer rows. The phasons on the Au induced nanowires ridges are pinned and therefore only a limited number of dimers exhibit flip-flop behavior for the Au/Ge(001) system.
authors.affiliation: Physical Aspects of Nanoelectronics, MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Arie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: van Houselt
authors.forename: Bene
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Poelsema
authors.forename: Harold J W
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Zandvliet
mesh_terms: D000327:Adsorption; D005246:Feedback; D005857:Germanium / Q000737:chemistry*; D006046:Gold / Q000737:chemistry*; D016252:Microscopy, Scanning Tunneling / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D009038:Motion; D053770:Nanowires / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D013499:Surface Properties; D013696:Temperature
chemical_list: D005857:Germanium; D006046:Gold